Welcome! fisc is an abreviation of 'flexibility is cool'. The site is a collection of blogs to promote the use of flexibility in our personal and professional lives, to help manage uncertainty and achieve growth.

Tag: stress management

I learned about the concept of relatedness while recently reading a fantastic book called ‘The Origin of Wealth’ published in 2006, by Eric Beinhocker. Beinhocker is now the Executive Director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Oxford, England.

Beinhocker describes ‘jump distance’ in a business plan landscape as having three dimensions; relatedness, risk and time horizon. Relatedness is essentially how far your plans are from current skills and knowledge held. Beinhocker describes time horizon as the expected time to payoff from the experiments. Beinhocker describes risk as ‘all the uncertainties that can affect the outcome of an … experiment. And the degree of irreversibility of the commitment (made)’. In this blogger’s professional experience, risk is commonly calculated in a relative way by assessing probability (likelihood) and magnitude (effect) of the risk. And then ranking risks from big to small.

What Beinhocker’s book didn’t outline was how the relatedness, risk and time horizon dimensions are related. Or how they relate to flexibility.

Using a famous physics formula that velocity = distance/time, we can estimate that progression rate (to achieve a personal goal say) = distance covered/time taken. And that a high progression rate (promotion to greater power say) is proportionate to a high degree of relatedness (patrons, mentors, special knowledge, influential networks to pave the way).

What about Risk? How does that relate to relatedness and time horizon? In relation to the velocity =distance over time equation, risk is that the planned velocity varies significantly in reality. Perhaps because the distance covered in the allotted time varies significantly from plan.

On a personal level, we can consider progression rate = distance/time as it applies to three things; emotional maturity (in human relationships), wisdom and coping skills.

The progression rate of a teenager in achieving advanced emotional maturity can be raised if there are good role models to learn from. And few things (like peer pressure, stress and negative reinforcement) holding back the advancement of emotional maturity. Or if the maturity time can be shortened somehow. For example, with incentives to mature faster. Or with time substitution – shortening the time by applying other resources in its place.

Regarding improving the progression rate to achieve wisdom and coping skills, the distance covered (quality and depth of wisdom and skills developed) can be improved with safe trials/simulations, analysis practice, improved data storage and retrieval, integrated systems and leverage in learning (learn three key things from one simulation say). Or if the time can be shortened somehow. For example, with incentives to learn and cope faster. Or with time substitution – shortening the time by applying other resources in its place.

Finally, how can the application of personal flexibility (PFL) help to improve the progression rate in the above examples? With emotional maturity, collecting options of good role models to learn from is a good start. Different people’s styles and thought processes can be observed for different situations encountered. Timeflex (the action of buying time, playing for time or reinventing time) is relevant too. Using romance as the example, buying time might involve talking to lots of people about your date’s past track record. Playing for time might involve playing hard to get. Reinventing time might be expanding the honeymoon!

With wisdom, using the flexitypes of design flexibility, process flexiblity and systems flexibility can help improve information management. An example of process flexibility is committing to both advanced education and lifelong learning (more analysis tools and more case studies observed). Timeflex is also relevant. The ‘FLIRS’ acronym of flexibility to leverage to impact to results to stories is also relevant i.e. use flexibility to create leverage, with results being the eventual wisdom obtained.

With life coping skills, using the flexitypes of design flexibility is also relevant. As is styflex (style flexibility), timeflex and FLIRS.

We all have stressful experiences and moments of uncertainty. Just this week, I accidently left my briefcase (satchel) on the overhead rack on a train. No doubt, for the passengers who stayed on the train after I departed, it must have been stressful for them too, seeing an unattended bag with no obvious owner.

When we experience stress, having ‘coping reserves’ of patience & energy, as well as listening to our inner voice that is encouraging us to persevere and not panic, can help. Those are all intangible forms of coping reserves.

What about more tangible reserves to help us cope? If we choose to develop various reserves of personal flexibility, ones we can see, such as a duplicate wallet, a large bank balance, a credit card, a house key hidden in the garden (in case we lock ourselves out side by mistake), a car that we can drive to work should the train system fail, a few valuables we can sell if we have to, a trusted set of friends, they can all be an important way to cope too.

Personal flexibility (PFL) isn’t generally a product you can buy at the local store. Instead, it’s a form of strength you hold. Some people pay good money to do weight training at the gym. They are essentially buying an exercise programme that leads to strength and fitness. With that strength helping them weather uncertainty, look good and feel better about themselves. Other people pay for professional therapy to improve their emotional strength. Political lobbyists essentially win or buy influence from politicians. Some people upskill and pay for advanced education, to improve their chances of future employment, professional success and promotion. In summary, PFL is valuable as a means to an end.

Can personal flexibility help us in other ways too? We can be happy on the surface, if we never challenge ourselves, or take a risk. To be happy beneath the surface likely involves moving out of our comfort zone. Taking some calculated risks. Accepting that we may stumble. And that we may have to do the equivalent of kissing a few frogs to find a prince. What goes with that more colourful life journey, is success defined in our own terms. In other words, to become happy beneath the surface, we may have to redefine what happiness is, including;

being happy about simple things,

being happy about small, incremental victories,

being happy for other people,

the journey making us happy, not just the destination making us happy.

If other people’s inflexibility makes us annoyed or unhappy, can we counter that with our own flexibility instead? One way is having enough PFL to avoid their inflexibility. Another is to use our PFL to moderate their inflexibility. A simple example is where various companies use crowd management techniques– making us wait in lines or queues for something. Corralling us is their inflexibility to cope, translating into inflexibility for us on our speed and direction. We can moderate this by using our waiting time constructively – using our smartphone to research or learn something while we wait.

A final thought. What would our lives be like if, each day we tried to actively manage our reserves of personal flexibility? It would likely involve monitoring which bits we are losing (or cashing in) and actively finding replacement forms of PFL, for those PFL things lost.

With growing PFL, we may feel happier and more confident. Better able to cope with uncertainty. And more able to grow as people. What do you think?